On 2nd March, nearly 200 Pilot Whales and a few Bottlenose Dolphins stranded on King Island off the north-west coast of Tasmania. About 140 of the whales died.

54 pilot whales and the five dolphins were rescued from the beach and guided out to sea by island residents, volunteers and parks and wildlife staff. One of them cam back onshore again overnight

According to a Tasmanian marine conservation expert, the shape of the sea floor may be partly responsible for a number of whale strandings in the area. They come close to shore and get caught at low tide on the shallow sloping beaches. This is the fourth stranding in Tasmania since November.

In January, 48 sperm whales stranded and died at Perkins Island.  That was the second-largest stranding of sperm whales in Tasmania.

Here is a link to a video of the whale rescue.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 3rd, 2009 at 11:10 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.